cthulhu_waits's page

Getting back to Savage Tide after a looooong break, and very happy to be running it again!

My PC's are currently assaulting the Crimson Fleet base, and I'm wondering how other DMs might have handled (or are planning to handle) the absolutely huge amount of wealth offered in this adventure. Do the later adventures scale it back a bit? I can go through and calculate them, but I thought I'd ask first.

It looks to me like, as written, the PC's (5 person party + a cohort) are going to get around 160,000 from the Crimson Fleet base alone.

Thanks!

Does the spell Nondetection work against Arcane Sight? Or would you use Misdirection to block that?

Ok, this is not directly related to STAP, but since this AP is demon-centric I thought it was a good place to ask this question. And Malcanthet do

In FC 1: Hordes of the Abyss both Malcanthet and Yeenoghu both have the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat in scourge and triple flail, respectively. But since outsiders are proficient with any weapons mentioned in their entry, then why do they need the feat? It's not a huge deal, but I hate to see any of my beloved demon princes get robbed of a feat.

I'm currently running LD, so I'm looking ahead at CoBI and I have a question about skinwalkers. Do they have four arms? From the italicized description it seems so, but I wanna make sure I'm running them right.

Their melee entry lists their attacks as macuahuitl AND two claws AND a bite. So they wield the macuahuitl in one hand, a shield in the other, and then attack with two claws, correct?

So a full attack from a skinwalker is two macuahuitl attacks (one regular and one iterative) plus 2 claws and 1 bite?

I wanted one of the Infamous Seven on the Isle of Dread to be a giant ape. It's terribly original, I know! So I dropped Baarbalurg, the shambling mound, and added Chakatru, King of the Apes. I thought I'd share his stats here for any that are wanting to have a Kong on the isle.

How I built him: Dire ape wasn't quite what I was looking for, ability score wise, so I went with Legendary Ape from MM2. The only problem with that is that they don't get bigger than medium size, and obviously we're looking for a huge ape for this build. So I cheated and just made him huge. I gave him all the normal adjustments for advancing a creature from medium to huge. I did increase his speed a bit, because dangit, he's king of the apes! So here he is:

Chakatru, King of the Apes CR 14
Male advanced elite legendary ape
Neutral Huge animal

Init: +4 Senses Listen +3, Spot +16, low-light vision, scent

AC: 23 (+4 dex, +11 natural, -2 size)
HP: 337 (25 HD)
Fort +28, Ref +18, Will +11

Speed: 50 (10 squares) Climb: 30 feet
Melee: 2 Claws +37 (4d6+20/19-20/x2) and Bite +35(4d6+10/19-20/x2)
Space/Reach: 15/15
Base Atk/Grapple: +18/+46

Attack Options: Power Attack
Special Attacks: Rend 4d8+30

Abilities: Str 50, Dex 18, Con 28, Int 2, Wis 17, Cha 11

Special Qualities: Low-light Vision, Scent

Feats: Improved Critical (Bite), Improved Critical (Claw), Improved Natural Attack (Claw), Improved Snatch, Multiattack, Power Attack, Snatch, Weapon Focus (Claw), Weapon Focus (Bite)

Skills: Climb +30, Move Silently +17, Spot +16

Special Abilities: Rend (Ex) If Chakatru hits a single target with both claws, he latches on to the target’s body and tears the flesh. This attack deals 4d8+30 points of damage.

I'm foreseeing a situation in my game tomorrow night where a glabrezu will be grappling a character and will also have mirror image up. I can't find anything in the rules to address the situation, so here is my question: does being grappled by a creature with mirror image let you automatically tell the difference between the real creature and it's images?

Nothing in the rules says it would, but common sense suggests that you would be able to attack the creature grappling you (with a light weapon at -4) because it's obvious which one is real, it's the one holding onto you.

Thoughts?

So my characters got to the Isle last session, and the T-rex on the beach promptly swallowed the rogue/swashbuckler. The question came up: does a rogue get sneak attack when attacking the stomach of a creature to cut his way out? I ruled yes, and the character did alot of damage to my poor dino. I'm not totally sure I ruled correctly.

The rules (in Monster Manual III) state the the AC of a creature's gizzard is 10 + 1/2 natural armor bonus, with no modifiers for size or dexterity.

Now, saying "no modifiers" is not the same thing as "denied it's dex bonus" from a literal standpoint. On the other hand, attacking a creature's gizzard would seem to qualify for hitting a vital spot.

Thoughts?

BTW, the T-rex was a great intro to the IoD. The party was very scared of it, and it took a while to bring down.

It's been a while since I've posted, but happy to say that my STAP campaign is going well. We are on SWW, they have just reached Journey's End. They are scared, which is really nice. :)

My question is about the spell Make Whole and how it works on repairing damaged hull sections of a ship. According to a strict reading of the spell, it would repair one hull section/caster level. Here is the spell, courtesy of the SRD:

Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target: One object of up to 10 cu. ft./ level

This spell functions like mending, except that make whole completely repairs an object made of any substance, even one with multiple breaks, to be as strong as new. The spell does not restore the magical abilities of a broken magic item made whole, and it cannot mend broken magic rods, staffs, or wands. The spell does not repair items that have been warped, burned, disintegrated, ground to powder, melted, or vaporized, nor does it affect creatures (including constructs).

Stupidly, this is how I told my PC's that it would work. Then I realized that I had created quite a conondrum for the end of SWW/beginning of HTBM. If all they have to do is cast a few Make Whole spells, then they would just continue on sailing to Farshore and skip Here There be Monsters.

So my question is: how does Make Whole work with regards to reparing ships? Stormwrack is silent on this issue.

When I first read the preview of STAP in #138 "Here There Be Monsters" sounded a bit like "Predator" to me, and I believe James Jacobs said as much in a post on this board when I asked about it. Now that I read it through, though it sounds more like "The Blair Witch Project." The wierd little trophies that Olangru leaves for the PC's to find, the sense of escalating terror until one of the team is kidnapped, etc... Having just watched Blair Witch again last night I am gonna have a hard time waiting to run HTBM!

Anyone else notice the similarities and thought of any cool ways to use this element of it?

We had our first Bullywug Gambit session the other night, and the paladin of freedom/bard (future Legendary Captain) came up with an interesting tactic. They had just defeated the savage pirates located at the "Beach of Ruin" and could hear all the horrendous noises coming from inside the caves. Understandably, they were somewhat hesitant about entering the caves full of savage creatures. I had described how the beach had piles of flotsam and debris that had washed ashore from the burning wrecks in the cove and on my Dundjinni map of the area I had placed a few piles of burnt wood on the beach.
So the paladin/bard suggested that they pile alot of the flotsam up near the entrance to the caves (the western one that leads to K3 & K5) and set the stuff on fire. Then he blew his conch (his bardic music instrument) to attract the monsters to them. They figured that these savage creatures were pretty fearless about attacking and might come through the fire to attack them, thus weakening them up a bit and also give the PC's time to buff before the fight and make it on their terms instead of the baddies. The wizard/cleric also cast caltrops (a cantrip from the Spell Compendium) on the squares right in front of the flaming debris.
I ended the session with Kadmos Grimly and his two savage buddy pirates coming towards them, but still on the other side of the fire. So now I'm stuck with that age old DM conundrum: how to reward good thinking without making things too easy. I definitely plan on having Kadmos and the other two guys climb over the debris to attack, and taking d6 fire as they go through. I want to leave Ripclaw in the Hall of Hanging Silks, because that encounter is just awesome as is. Navesh Wyvernsting will probably come at them, but he will climb along the ceiling of the cavern and thus avoid the fire. I'm trying to decide if any more savage creatures should come at them at this location? The only other savage pirates (besides the ones in the pens and the ones fighting Harliss) are the ones in the maze. The krenshars are unable to come because of their chains and as I said I don't want to have Ripclaw leave his area. Personally, I feel having three savage pirates come through the fire and Navesh perhaps take a little fire damage just from heat as he climbs along the ceiling is a fairly generous reward for good tactics, but am I being stingy here?

Also, any ideas on how long the wood would burn? I said they found enough stuff to cover a 10' area. I'm thinking five minutes, but I really have no idea.

We just started The Bullywug Gambit tonight and my players had a blast. Now that one of the PC's has savage fever it made me think once again about how I'm going to run it. So far the character has failed his initial save and taken the INT damage, which was only 2 points. I really like Nicholas Logue's variant houserule method of having them become savage as soon as they take 6 points of damage, but I don't wanna be quite that harsh to my players. (I know...I'm a softie.) But I think I will change the length of the coma. I don't really like the idea of a character spending days in a coma while his intelligence heals up to it's new maximum. I think the way I'm gonna do it is once your intelligence heals up to 1, you wake up and are a savage creature. Then your intelligence keeps healing while you do your savage thing over the next several days. (Probably at just a rate of 1 per day, since I don't think many savage creatures are laying around getting complete bed rest.)

I like this not only because it reduces the amount of time in the coma but I find the idea of all savage creatures being completely animalistic when they first awaken to their new life really cool. The wizard with an 18 INT wakes up from his coma and he has no real memories of who he is; his only thoughts are of killing and eating. As the days go by, though, things start coming back to him through the savage fog and eventually he is a cunning, intelligent but still very savage monster, even capable of casting up to 2nd level spells. Of course most savage creatures would die before their intelligence is healed fully because as James Jacobs said it's not by their very natures most of them don't have a long life.

But this brings to mind a question: exactly when in the coma does the character actually become a savage creature? Say the druid's wolf animal companion fails his initial fort save. He only has a 2 intelligence so the chances are very good he's dropping to 0 right then and falling into the coma. The druid casts Lesser Restoration on his four legged friend right away. But is the wolf a savage creature already, or is it not until he comes out of the coma? If he's savage already then all the druid is doing is bringing him out of the coma as a savage creature sooner. But if he's not savage yet then this would stave off the disease for a little while longer.

Soon my characters will begin The Bullywug Gambit, and I assume that they'll take a rowboat to and from Kraken's Cove. I have a feeling that when they are rushing back to Sasserine to save Lavinia from the depradations of Drevoraz and the bullywugs, they will want to row 24 hours a day, in 8 hour shifts. (There are four of them.) The adventure says they can do this, but it seems to me that it would be hard to get restful sleep in a rowboat. There is basically a five foot space for each character, IIRC. You're essentually sleeping while sitting up in the boat. I'm thinking there ought to be some penalties after doing this. Perhaps not as bad as being fatigued, but something along those lines. Anyone have any ideas on how to handle this?

I'm gonna finish TINH tonight (woohoo!) and be starting TBG in a few weeks. I am currently finishing up work on it. We play gestalt so I am changing NPC's to gestalt versions.

I have a balance question about Diamondback, the stiltwalker assassin who tries to kill the PC's during Wormfall festival. She is currently a battledancer, which is a class I'm not familiar with as I don't have the Dragon compendium, but I can figure out enough about it from her write-up in the magazine. My question is this: to make her gestalt I was considering making her a battledancer/ninja, and then making her rogues fighter/ninjas.

Battledancers apparently add their Cha to AC, and ninjas add their Wis to AC (like a monk.) Do you think this is a balanced gestalt combo? There are definitely combos in gestalt that are broken, even with how powerful gestalt is. And combos with new classes like battledancer certainly can be a problem. So whad'ya think? Is adding Cha and Wis to AC too much?

Also, on a more general note for those of you who have already run this encounter: how was it? I think it looks really cool, being in the middle of a parade/festival and with the baddies walking on stilts. Did it work ok? Did your PC's like it?

In my game, we use the houserule (from Unearthed Arcana, I believe) where you die at -Con instead of -10. So if your Con is 15, you die at -15.

When reading the other thread about the savage template, it suddenly occured to me that I have a decision to make. Do I have Savage creatures die at - Con or at -10? For some of them, dying at - Con is a fairly big boost in fighting power. I'm just worried about doing too much to my PC's.

Now I should mention that we run a very high-powered game. (Most of us are unabashed power gamers.) We use gestalt and a high-powered rolling system. Of course all NPC's are gestalt, all monsters have their CR lowered by 1, and I've improved the Elite Array to account for the PC's higher ability scores so the relative toughness of the adventures is preserved.

Just curious if anyone is using the Dundjinni mapping software for their STAP games? I am currently working on the BG maps, and they are working pretty well. I've got the Beach of Ruin looking just like I want it, with corpses, blood, and smoke covering the whole beach. I'm not quite sure how to do the Hall of Hanging Silks, though.

We use Dundjinni in all our games, and if you're ready to put some time and thought into making maps, it's a really cool piece of software.

I'm a a little confused about how all the passengers and crew are supposed to fit on the Sea Wyvern, as things are written in SWW. (I'm basing the following info from Stormwrack and the info we're given in SWW.)
A caravel like the Sea Wyvern can hold 30 people and has a watch complement of 7. Ideally a ship would have four watches with duty shifts of 6 hours each, but three watches of 8 hours each works as well so that's what I'm going with.
In my campaign we have four PC's, so that leaves room for 26 more people. One of the players is a captain, so I don't need Amella. (sp?) On a small ship like the SW, the captain can also act as pilot and there doesn't need to be a dedicated helmsman, rather one of the crew can do that. So I think the only absolutely neccessary officers are a first mate, a chief bos'un and a captain.
The first mate will be the captain PC's cohort, since the PC is going into Legendary Captain (from Stormwrack.) Two of the PC's are proficient sailors so I'm thinking they can be bos'uns for two of the watch shifts.
This leaves the NPC's. Rowyn doesn't really take up a bunk space, since she's a stowaway. I'm assuming Tavey doesn't either, since I'm sure he's happy to sleep on deck or even in the crow's nest. IIRC, that leaves five NPC's who take up a sleeping space.

I'm not quite sure if the listed neccessary watch complement includes officers, but I'm assuming it doesn't. So here is how the numbers break down, as I see it.

4 PC's (one of which is captain and the other two can act as bos'uns.)

1 first mate.

21 crew members.

5 NPC's.

1 NPC boatswain. (for the watch crew that the two NPC bos'uns are not on.)

That is 31 people right there, one more than the SW can hold, and they're also supposed to be taking colonists!

Am I missing something? The adventure seems to be putting too many people on the Sea Wyvern.

In The Bullywug Gambit it says that the shadow pearl was being delivered to a noble family in Sasserine. It never says who it was going to, but this is the kind of thing that if my players hear I know they'll want to pursue. Any ideas about which family wanted it? Or is the noble family just a ruse? What did the noble family want it for? Is someone in Sasserine part of the plot that Demogorgon is hatching?

On friday my PC's encountered Rowyn Kellani in the LD guildhall and it was such a fun encounter that I thought I would tell about it.

They got to Rowyn's lounge fairly early on in their assault on the guildhall, simply because they happened to go that way. She introduced herself and said how impressed with them for what they had accomplished so far. She offered them jobs, paying substantially more than what Lavinia was paying. (Not that she knew exactly how much they're being paid by Lavinia, of course, but she made a nice offer.) The party paladin (he's a paladin of freedom from Unearthed Arcana) was unimpressed with her offer and the half-orc fighter druid who was freed from slavery by the paladin generally follows his lead in social situations. But the CN rogue/swashbuckler seemed to be considering it. There was a fun discussion between the party and Rowyn as she tried to convince them to work for her, rather then against her. She then offered to give up Vanthus to them if they would join her.

At this point I brought in a Skill Trick from Complete Scoundrel. It gives a spellcaster to conceal their spellcasting if they succeed on a sleight of hand check opposed by Spot Checks. I made the Spot checks for the PC's in secret, so as not to alert the players. (They don't metagame, but I still find it's better to do stuff like that in secret because some amount of metagaming is very hard to avoid in a sitution like that.) I was worried when the druid got a 27 on his spot check, but then Rowyn rolled a 20, and with her Sleight of Hand modifier easily beat the druid's spot check. I should mention that we use the gestalt system and I changed Rowyn to a Beguiler/Rogue instead of a Bard/Rogue. (I believe James Jacobs suggested that in a thread on gestalt STAP--thanks James!)

Rowyn concealed her casting of Charm Person on the rogue/swashbuckler and he failed his save. (Well, they didn't know he made a save they just knew I told him to roll a d20.) I took the player aside and told him that his character now regarded Rowyn as a close friend. The player handled this very well. Rather than playing it as obvious, as many players do, saying "She's my friend and I won't allow you to harm her!" he played it from a selfish angle along the lines of "If she's gonna give us Vanthus, which is what we were hired to do, and pay us a good sum in addition, then why shouldn't we work for her?" He played it so well that even though the other players knew he had made an undetermined d20 roll and I had taken him aside, they still thought he might have legitimately turned on them. After a bit more talking, the half-orc grew impatient and simply tried to take Rowyn's head off with his falchion. The battle ensued with the charmed character fighting on Rowyn and Gut Tugger's side. Rowyn failed her save against Cause Fear cast by the cleric and when she attempted to flee she was brought to the negatives by the attacks of opportunity from the paladin and the druid. The druid got a crit on his AoO. The party then managed to kill Gut Tugger and drop the charmed character to the negatives, knocking him unconscous. The cleric/wizard cast Detect Magic on him and seeing an enchantment aura explained to the other characters that he was probably enspelled by Rowyn. The party is now planning on turning Rowyn over to the authorities, and of course she will escape from jail in the future so she can show up for The Sea Wyvern's wake.

All in all, it was a great encounter that the party loved and had a lot of fun with. By choosing a morally ambigous party member to charm Rowyn was able to drive a real wedge in the party. (The paladin still doesn't quite trust the rogue/swashbuckler.)

I have to say that Complete Scoundrel was a big help in this encounter and recommend it to all who are running STAP. It's a very appropriate book for this campaign.

I also wanna thank James Jacobs for designing a great encounter. The party is loving TINH so far.

The recent thread I started about the wild empathy spell got me to thinking: there is nothing in the rules, I don't believe, to say that wild empathy would not work on a savage animal or low intelligence savage magical beast. All the same, I find the idea pretty preposterous. "It's ok, little monkey...owww! He bit my hand off!"

So what does everyone think? Apply serious penalties to the roll or (more likely) just laugh if a foolish PC tries it?

This is a new spell that I made that could be useful in STAP, what with all the dinosuars and such. I was trying to fix the problem of a druid or ranger not being able to use wild empathy against an actively hostile animal, because he won't have time before the animal begins mauling him. I balanced it against Accelarate Movement, a 1st level spell that lets you use Climb, Move Silently, Swim and Tumble at full speed with no penalties.

Urgent Empathy
Transmutation

Level: Druid 2, Ranger 2
Components: V,S
Casting Time: 1 swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

After casting this spell, you may use your wild empathy class feature as a full-round action without the normal -10 penalty. In addition, you receive a +1 enhancement bonus/5 caster levels, to a maximum of +4 at 20th. This spell has no effect if you do not possess the wild empathy class feature.

Let me know what you think about its balance, ways to improve it, etc...

I've been planning on posting about this funny thing for awhile, but never got around to it. When I read through the preview for STAP in Dungeon #138, I had to laugh at some of the stuff that was going to happen. Not because of any badly written aspects of STAP (far from it) but because of the campaign I just finished. Major STAP spoilers ahead, of course.

The campaign I just finished running was just me and my brother, with him playing several characters. (Sucks, I know, but sometimes you make do with what you got.) I don't need to bore you all with too many details of the campaign to see the humor of my situation, but some are neccessary. It was set in a homebrew world and featured undead and demons quite heavily. It centered around a plot of Orcus to turn the world into another layer of the Abyss, which would give Orcus the power to achieve godhood and wipe out all his enemies (read: everyone who isn't Orcus.) The main villian was named Lord Vridath and in the first adventure he tricked the PC's into shattering a powerful evil artifact, releasing a huge amount of undead into the world and starting the process that would Abyssify the world. This great rush of evil energy around Vridath turned him into a half-fiend. Much later in the campaign the characters killed Vridath, but Orcus brought him back as a death knight. The characters ended up fighting him one more time when he was a half-fiend death knight, destroying him for good. Then they went to the Abyss and stopped Orcus' plans for good, even getting to tangle with Orcus for a few rounds before performing the neccessary steps to save the world and be the big heroes.

So what do I find when I read the STAP preview? Vanthus (another "v" name) starts out as human, becomes a half-fiend. He is defeated by the PC's, and then will return as a death knight. And the big bad guy at the end? Demogorgon! Of course these are the only respects in which the STAP storyline is similar to my own campaing, but it is really wierd. I had thought I was done with demon princes for awhile when I finished my campaign, but apparently they weren't done with me. Pesky demons!

I think my fate as a DM is inexorably tied to the Abyss. I'm thinking my next campaign should take a big leap and feature Grazz't or if I get really crazy perhaps Dagon. :)

I don't have Heroes of Battle, but from what I've heard about it, it uses a victory point system that is very similar to the VP system for determining the outcome of the Farshore battle. Am I correct in this?
It's a great way to handle mass combat within the context of an adventure. Would having HoB help flesh out this battle, or is it not really neccessary?

Ok, I'm bored so I wrote a little song that will hopefully amuse some people.

Savage Tide Rising
(to the tune of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising")

I see the savage tide risin’
I see bullywugs on the way
I see fiends and humans fightin’
I see bad times today

Vanthus released the blight
And now we’ve gotta fight
The savage tide is on the rise

I hear savage monkeys howling
I know the Isle is coming soon
I fear the demon princes’ power growin’
I fear his dual actions’ll be my ruin

Vanthus released the blight
And now we’ve gotta fight
The savage tide is on the rise

Hope you’ve munchkinized your PC’s
Hope you’re prepared for the Isle
Looks like we’ll be fightin’ nasty beasties
Demorgorgon is really quite vile

Vanthus released the blight
And now he’s got to die
Yeah, the savage tide is on the rise

I was given a 1 year subscription to Dragon for my Christmas, and am a regular poster on the Savage Tide Messageboard. I've noticed that many people have "Subscriber" next to their name in parentheses. Is there anyway that I can have that appear next to my name, even though the subscription is not on my account? It is on my brother's account, and being shipped to me

Also, assuming this can happen for the purposes of being noted as a "subscriber" does it matter whether you get Dungeon or Dragon? My subscription is to Dragon but I post more often on the Dungeon boards, in the STAP forum.

I'm sure I'm just missing it in the description, but where does the trapdoor in the ceiling of D9 lead? I know that the trapdoors in the ceiling of D10 both lead to Dead Dog Alley, but I can't find where the one in D9 leads.

When I bought Stormwrack I thought one of the most interesting terrain types introduced was the sargasso sea, and was very happy to sea this concept featured in Sea Wyvern's Wake.
That said, reading through that adventure again brought some questions to mind: How exactly does a ship get stuck in it? You can't sail out of it, so how can you sail into it? I know that the Mother of All controls the sargasso, but the adventure states that only the central portions are actually alive, the part where the Sea Wyvern gets stuck (about a mile from the edge) are dead. Does the grass allow sailing into, but not out of? If so, how exactly does that work?

Also, I know that the night that it happens is overcast, but would that keep the crew and PC's completely unaware of what is going on? Is it the kind of fog that gives anything more than 5' away total concealment? If so, I guess that could explain it.

I am running a play by e-mail prologue to TINH which takes place on a ship headed for Sasserine. Aboard the ship are the four PC’s plus three NPC’s, one of which is Lavinia. I did it to give the PC’s a chance to introduce themselves to each other and for me to introduce some NPC’s, mainly Lavinia. The first part of the prologue consisted of a late night conversation between the PC’s and the NPC’s, which coincidentally is happening on the same night as the Vandberoren’s boat is burning. The PC’s get to Sasserine two weeks before Lavinia invites them to dinner and gives them the job offer. The second part of the prologue gives the PC’s a chance to explore Sasserine, learn the stuff from the Player’s Guide, etc….
I had two of my PC’s overhear a couple of dockworkers talking about the tragedy which befell Verik and Larissa Vanderboren. One of my players, being naturally suspicious as all players are, suspects that there was more to the fire than just an accident. He is going to do a little investigating, because his character took a liking to Lavinia.
Of course I don’t want the characters to discover Vanthus’ involvement at this early stage in the adventure but at the same time I want to reward him if he roleplays the investigation well and gets a good Gather Info check result. Here is what I plan on allowing him to learn at this point: (remember we haven’t even started the adventure proper, yet)

1. The crew loaded a lot of cargo crates onto the boat the day of the fire, but there wasn’t anything suspicious about this as Verik planned on taking the boat out the next day.
2. The crew didn’t know who asked them to load the crates, but assumed it was Verik. (In reality it was Vanthus, of course.) Only the officer in charge of the loading knew that it was Vanthus.
3. The officer in charge has already signed on with another ship and left Sasserine, and isn’t due back for another month. (Vanthus helped find him work on another ship immediately to get him out of town. Then he paid another member of the crew to kill the officer as soon as they reached port in another city.
4. Once the ship started burning, it went up very quickly.

So the character could learn that the ship burned quickly and cargo was loaded the day of the fire, presumably by Verik. No one can confirm that Verik ordered this, though.

Anyone have suggestions about anything else the players could learn at this point? I am reluctant to give too much away at this point, because my players are smart enough to put pieces together very quickly and deduce who did it and I don’t want to give anything away too early.

I will (finally) be running my first STAP session in a couple of weeks, right now we're doing a play by e-mail prologue. I'm looking at the rhagodessa on the Blue Nixie, and I'm curious: for those who have ran the encounter, how much of a killer is it?
With it's pedipalps it will only have to roll a 9 to hit the highest AC in the party, and it's grapple modifier beats everyone's in the party, easily. The free bite attack afterwards is enough to drop any first level character. I've read through the obit thread, and the others where people talk about how tough the first encounter is and I really don't want a TPK in my first encounter. In fact, I'd rather everyone survive it. I know, I know...I'm a softie DM.
I'm considering dropping it's strength to 17 and lowering the damage that an escaping creature takes to 1d2. The lowered strength would reduce it's attack and grapple by 1 and more importantly it's damage by 2. It's still a really tough monster then, but it seems more survivable for 1st level characters who have already fought several thugs. My campaign is gestalt and I'm still worried about this encounter, though actually 1st level gestalt characters aren't that much more powerful than regular 1st level characters.
I do think this is a great first encounter, I'm just
worried about getting Savage Tide off to a bloody start for my players.

I noticed that in "Here there Be Monsters" there wasn't a sidebar for Affiliation rewards like the previous two adventures. My group is deciding now before we start whether we want to use the concept, but if there aren't going to be ongoing rewards for belonging to them and ongoing ways to use them, we probably won't do it.

Is their absence in HTBM due to the fact the characters aren't in Sasserine anymore? If that's the case then I presume there won't be much to do with them in further STAP adventures. It seems like with Sending spells and the like and later on Greater Teleport characters could still interact with their respective affiliations.

I was reading through the Stormwrack web enhancement and it got me to thinking about kopru. For those who don't know, kopru are an amphibious monster originally introduced in X1: The Isle of Dread. They have tentacled faces and use dominate monster to control their enemies, which include everything that isn't a kopru. According to the STAP preview they will be making a critical appearance on the Isle of Dread, which is cool because other than dinosaurs they were the signature monster of the original Isle. They were reintroduced for 3.0 in MMII and for 3.5 in the Stormwrack web enhancement.

My question has to to with a kopru's type. They are monstrous humanoids. It sure seems like they would be abberations. They are fairly alien, use mental dominations and they've got tentacles. Isn't it a pretty ironclad rule in 3.5 that if it's got tentacles, tendrils, psuedopods, etc... then it's a abberation?

I do notice that monstrous humanoids are generally better than abberations, as they have full BAB and two good saves. Is that the reason?

Mr. Jacobs, you were one of the authors of Lords of Madness (great book!) so perhaps you have some special insight into abberations? Any reason you know of why kopru are monstrous humanoids? Is it to keep them seperate from mind flayers, whom they somewhat resemble?

So I picked up Hordes of the Abyss a few months ago, because my current (homebrew) campaign heavily features Orcus. Then I heard about Savage Tide and knew it was for me, and I was happy to get away from demons for awhile. Of course, it turns out that the baddie in ST is none other than Demogorgon himself, so it looks like I'll be stuck with demons for awhile! :)

But looking through Hordes of the Abyss last night, I got to thinking about how demon lords other than Demogorgon will be involved. From the preview it looks like the PC's will need to enlist the help of other Abyssal celebrities, such os Orcus and Grazzt. But what about demon lords that might be working with Demogorgon on this? I know cooperation is not their strong-suit (they missed that day in kindergarten) but one that seems particularly suited to the savage tide is Baphomet, Prince of Beasts. He is all about bestial savagery, might he he be working with the Prince of Demons on this, in hopes that it will ultimately make him more powerul than Big D himself?

I really like the rules for contracting the savage disease, but I have a few questions about it. It turns you chaotic evil and lowers your Int by 6, but do you automatically turn into a slavering beast, bent only on eating any one you can get? For instance, if it does happen that one of my PC's contracts it and he was a high Int character to begin with, how does he behave now? Say the party wizard with an 18 Int, is now diseased and has a 12 Intelligence. How should I encourage him to roleplay this? He is still pretty smart, would he try to trick his companions into a situation where he can kill and eat them, or would he just launch himself at them, biting and snarling?

Just read "The Bullywug Gambit" last night and I have to say so far this AP is starting out just awesome. If the rest of the adventures are of the quality of the first I think this will be an incredible campaign. I have a friend (who will be a player in my STAP campaign) who is a big fan of Nicholas Logue, and I can see why. I had played in "Chimes at Midnight" and found it very enjoyable, so I was really looking forward to this adventure. And it did not disappoint at all. I have to tip my hat to all those at Dungeon who are working on this, because it is incredible.
One question: when did bullywugs originally appear in D&D? I remember them, but I can't find where they made their debut. Was it OD&D? 2nd Edition? I know they're a Realms monster now, but I've never played FR and I could swear I remember playing with bullywugs! Or am I just remembering the D&D cartoon and thinking I played in it? :)

Reading through "There is No Honor" I was intrigued by the notes that the party will find in the Vanderboren family vault. The ones I'm talking about are the ones written by Lavinia's mother (I can't recall her name right now) which are said to include scetches of monsters, maps of coastlines and other things she wrote down when she was at The Isle of Dread. The adventure describes these notes, but there isn't any handout for them. Will there be a handout for these in a later adventure?
I am thinking about writing up some of these notes, but I have to leave it general enough so that it will fit with what the characters actually find on the Isle, without giving away too much. What would be some good general things to describe in these notes? Obviously things about the jungle would be included, but what about some things that Lavinia's mother may have encountered on the isle? I think this could be a real cool handout for the players to give them a preview of what they'll find later on.
Also, as a nod to the original Isle of Dread, I am going to name the captain of the ship that Lavinia's parents took to the Isle Rory Barbarossa, after the captain whose notes the characters find in the original IoD adventure.

Obviously these questions are primarily meant for James Jacobs or one of the other writers of STAP.

Ok, I got my copy of #139 yesterday and have done one read-through of the adventure. It looks really good, but I noticed one wierd thing in the monster entries. Am I crazy, or is there no space and reach listed for any of the monsters in their stat blocks? I'm still not totally used to the new format, so maybe I just missed it but I don't think so. It's not a huge problem, usually you can just look up the monster in whatever book it came out of or just figure it out based on the monster's size but it is strange not to have it.

Is this just a misprint or will none of the future adventures in the path have reach and space entries?

Are district feats bonus feats that any character from a particular district will get for free, or are they just new feats that you have to be from that district to take?

Not trying to be a jerk or anything about this, but some of us that are running STAP might be playing Age of Worms someday, so it would be really cool if AoW spoilers were given more consistent warnings. I have run across several spoilers on the board just casually dropped into conversation. I know it's easy to do if you've played it, but it sucks for those of us that have yet to play it.

I am really happy to have found this board and to be able to give and get ideas from everyone else running it. Again, not trying to point fingers or anything with this--just a request.

Just wondering if I'm the only one that thinks that Adventure 4, "Here there be monsters" doesn't just sound like an incredibly fun adventure? As the party and ship's crew move down the coast of the Isle people are picked off one by one by the demon. Most of our group are fans of the movie "Predator" and this adventure sounds similar to that. If they have a native guide I can't wait to have him the give the obligatory speech: "My people tell of a beast that looks like an ape which hunts men and takes them. When it is finished with them it makes trophies of their flesh. We call it 'The Ape that Does Not Die.' Now, it hunts us."

What a great introduction to the Isle!

I know that pirates figure in prominently in STAP, so this is probably a stupid question, but will the combat with pirates be done ship to ship? With Stormwrack I believe this is possible. One of my players is considering playing a Legendary Captain and they seem to excell at that sort of thing, so I'm just curious..